{"id":748,"date":"2014-10-18T21:22:57","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T21:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/?p=748"},"modified":"2014-10-19T12:04:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T12:04:00","slug":"wheres-composer-making-music-open-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/2014\/10\/18\/wheres-composer-making-music-open-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Where\u2019s the Composer in \u201cMaking Music with Open Data\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/oompah.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-753 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/oompah.jpg\" alt=\"oompah\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>Jack Webster (BA Hons Music 2014) has now embarked on the MSc\/PhD programme in Web Science at Southampton. Here he tells us about a recent event on music and technology:<\/em>\u00a0 On Friday 10<sup>th<\/sup> October, the Open Data Institute hosted a lunchtime lecture on the topic of \u201cMaking Music with Open Data,\u201d which, for research purposes, I headed up to London to attend. The lecture consisted of a presentation by Nicholas Tollervey and Simon Davy about their project, \u201cOompah.py: Big Brass Meets Big Data,\u201d which used open data to compose a piece of music for brass band. By \u201cmusicalising\u201d data, the \u201cOompah.py\u201d project challenges traditional ways of visualising data and, as I will discuss, composing music.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/IMG_0586.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-749 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/IMG_0586-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_0586\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/IMG_0586-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/IMG_0586-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/files\/2014\/10\/IMG_0586-700x522.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The Project: \u201cOompah.py: Big Data Meets Big Brass\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cOompah.py\u201d project used footfall data from across the city of Leeds, provided by Leeds Data Mill, an open data initiative, to \u201ccompose\u201d a piece of music. Through the use of a computer programme written for the project, the raw data was transformed into music using a scheme of pre-defined musical variables, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An increase in footfall leads to an increase in dynamic level and rhythmic intensity.<\/li>\n<li>A different instrument group represents a different footfall camera, leading to differentiation through timbre.<\/li>\n<li>A different key indicates each hour of the day; as the hour changes, the key moves through the circle of fifths.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can listen to the \u201cOompah.py\u201d piece (and the whole lecture, in fact) on the <a title=\"ODI Soundcloud page\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theodi\/friday-lunchtime-lecture-making-music-with-open-data#t=28:08http:\/\/\" target=\"_blank\">ODI\u2019s Soundcloud page<\/a> (the link starts where the music begins).<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, Where\u2019s the \u201cComposer\u201d in all of this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I was listening to the presentation, I kept wondering about where the \u201ccomposer\u201d \u2013 an omnipresent present figure throughout most of musical history \u2013 is in all of this. After all here I was, being told about how open data was being used to \u201cmake\u201d music.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of using footfall data as a basis for a composition is an interesting idea; what we have is a piece of music that represents the city in a new kind of way, and it\u2019s a piece of music that quite profoundly embodies \u201cmotion\u201d and \u201cmovement\u201d. Thinking about \u201cOompah.py\u201d in this way reminded me of Steve Reich\u2019s \u201cNew York Counterpoint,\u201d which is a beautiful representation of the rhythms of the city. Unlike \u201cNew York Counterpoint,\u201d however, this composition quite literally represents the rhythms of the city and takes less of a subjective position.<\/p>\n<p>The point I just made is crucial here, I think. By having data-guided, computer-generated composition, we begin to challenge the role of the composer in musical creation. For the sake of argument, let\u2019s say that Steve Reich\u2019s \u201cNew York Counterpoint\u201d was \u201ccomposed\u201d \u2013 I think most people would agree. On the other hand, however, the extent to which \u201cOompah.py\u201d can be considered to be a \u201ccomposition\u201d is more debatable.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to a statement such as this, of course, depends on what one\u2019s definition of a \u201ccomposer\u201d is. Is a composer some who writes music using musical notation? Is a composer someone who commands sound? Does musical composition require intentionality? Leaving definitions aside, we might ask: in the \u201cOompah.py\u201d example, is the music \u201ccomposed\u201d by the data set, the computer programme, Nicholas Tollervey and Simon Davy, or a combination of these?<\/p>\n<p>I have had some time to reflect upon these questions since the presentation and my view on it isn\u2019t that clear-cut. I think the \u201cOompah.py\u201d is partly composed because despite the musical outcome being mostly data driven, some musical decision-making has taken place, including what constitutes an \u201cincrease\u201d in dynamic level and rhythmic intensity, for instance. However if I were to consider the compositional significance of each contributor (the data set, the computer programme, and the human actors), I would put the data set above the computer programme and human actor, and the human actor above the computer programme.<\/p>\n<p>I urge you to think about the role of the composer in the \u201cmusicalisation\u201d of data, and perhaps consider other instances where the \u201ctraditional\u201d role of the composer is being challenged in the digital age, where user-generated content, and as we have encountered, [big] data-driven content is prominent?<\/p>\n<p>For more information on the \u201cOompah.py\u201d project, visit the <a title=\"Open Data Institute page\" href=\"http:\/\/theodi.org\/lunchtime-lectures\/friday-lunchtime-lecture-making-music-with-open-data\" target=\"_blank\">Open Data Institute\u2019s webpage about the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Jack Webster (BA Hons Music 2014) has now embarked on the MSc\/PhD programme in Web Science at Southampton. Here he tells us about a recent event on music and technology:\u00a0 On Friday 10th October, the Open Data Institute hosted a lunchtime lecture on the topic of \u201cMaking Music with Open Data,\u201d which, for research purposes, I headed up to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6494,522211,65478],"tags":[643777],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-composition","category-postgraduate","tag-jack-webster","column","threecol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3YgXZ-c4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/maths\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}